Battle of Okinawa

Allied In all, the US Army had over 103,000 soldiers (of these, 38,000+ were non-divisional artillery, combat support and HQ troops, with another 9,000 service troops), over 88,000 Marines and 18,000 Navy personnel (mostly Seabees and medical personnel). The British naval contingent accompanied 251 British naval aircraft and included a British Commonwealth fleet with Australian, New Zealand and Canadian ships and personnel. Japanese The Japanese land campaign (mainly defensive) was conducted by the 67,000-strong (77,000 according to some sources) regular 32nd Army and some 9,000 Imperial Japanese Navy troops at Oroku Naval Base (only a few hundred of whom had been trained and equipped for ground combat), supported by 39,000 drafted local Ryukyuan people (including 24,000 hastily drafted rear militia called Boeitai and 15,000 non-uniformed laborers). The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but now for the first time they became a major institutionalized aspect of the Japanese defensive strategy. Between the American landing on 1 April and 25 May, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The 32nd Army initially consisted of the 9th, 24th and 62nd Divisions and the 44th Independent Mixed Brigade. The 9th Division was moved to Taiwan before the invasion, resulting in shuffling of Japanese defensive plans. Primary resistance was to be led in the south by Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Isamu Chō and his chief of operations, Colonel Hiromichi Yahara. Yahara advocated a defensive strategy, whilst Chō advocated an offensive one. In the north, Colonel Takehiko Udo was in command. The naval troops were led by Rear Admiral Minoru Ōta. They expected the Americans to land 6–10 divisions against the Japanese garrison of two and a half divisions. The staff calculated that superior quality and numbers of weapons gave each US division five or six times the firepower of a Japanese division. To this, would be added the Americans' abundant naval and air firepower. Japanese use of children On Okinawa, the Imperial Japanese Army mobilized 1,780 schoolboys aged 14–17 years into front line service as an Iron and Blood Imperial Corps (), while female Himeyuri students were organized into a nursing unit. ==Naval battle==

The US Navy's Task Force 58, deployed to the east of Okinawa with a picket group of 6 to 8 destroyers, kept 13 carriers (7 fleet carriers and 6 light carriers) on duty from 23 March to 27 April and a smaller number thereafter. Until 27 April, a minimum of 14 and up to 18 escort carriers were in the area at all times. Until 20 April, British Task Force 57, with 4 large and 6 escort carriers, remained off the Sakishima Islands to protect the southern flank. From 26 March to 30 April, 20 American ships were sunk and 157 damaged by enemy action. By 30 April the Japanese had lost more than 1,100 planes to Allied naval forces alone. The ships lost were smaller vessels, particularly the destroyers of the radar pickets, as well as destroyer escorts and landing ships. While no major Allied warship was lost, several fleet carriers were severely damaged. Land-based Shin'yō-class suicide motorboats were also used in the Japanese suicide attacks, although Ushijima had disbanded the majority of the suicide boat battalions before the battle because of expected low effectiveness against a superior enemy. The boat crews were re-formed into three additional infantry battalions. File:Yamato battleship explosion.jpg|The battleship explodes after persistent attacks from US aircraft. File:USS Bunker Hill hit by two Kamikazes.jpg|American aircraft carrier burns after being hit by two kamikaze planes within 30 seconds. Operation Ten-Go Operation Ten-Go (Ten-gō sakusen) was the attempted attack by a strike force of ten Japanese surface vessels, led by Yamato and commanded by Admiral Seiichi Itō. This small task force had been ordered to fight through enemy naval forces, then beach Yamato and fight from shore, using her guns as coastal artillery and her crew as naval infantry. The Ten-Go force was spotted by submarines shortly after it left the Japanese home waters and was intercepted by US carrier aircraft. Under attack from more than 300 aircraft over a two-hour span, the world's largest battleship sank on 7 April 1945 after a one-sided battle, long before she could reach Okinawa. (US torpedo bombers were instructed to aim for only one side to prevent effective counter flooding by the battleship's crew, and to aim for the bow or the stern where armor was believed to be the thinnest.) Of Yamatos screening force, the light cruiser and four of the eight destroyers were also sunk. The Imperial Japanese Navy lost some 3,700 sailors, including Admiral Itō, at the cost of ten US aircraft and twelve airmen. British Pacific Fleet The British Pacific Fleet, taking part as Task Force 57, was assigned the task of neutralizing the Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, which it did successfully from 26 March to 10 April. On 10 April its attention was shifted to airfields in northern Formosa. The force withdrew to San Pedro Bay on 23 April. On 1 May, the British Pacific Fleet returned to action, subduing the airfields as before, this time with naval bombardment as well as aircraft (they only used aircraft during their first mission of destroying airfields in the Sakishima Islands). Several kamikaze attacks caused significant damage, but as the Royal Navy carriers had armored flight decks, they experienced only a brief interruption to their force's operations. File:HMS Implacable AWM 019037.jpg|Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Avengers, Seafires and Fireflies on warm up their engines before taking off. File:HMS Formidable (67) on fire 1945.jpg| on fire after a kamikaze attack on May 4. The ship was out of action for fifty minutes. ==Land battle==

The land battle took place over about 81 days beginning on 1 April 1945. The first Americans ashore were soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division who landed in the Kerama Islands, west of Okinawa on 26 March. Subsidiary landings followed, and the Kerama group was secured over the next five days. In these preliminary operations, the 77th Infantry Division suffered 27 dead and 81 wounded, while the Japanese dead and captured numbered over 650. On March 28, 1945, 394 civilians on Tokashiki island were forced by Japanese soldiers to kill themselves after the landing of US troops. The operation provided a protected anchorage for the fleet and eliminated the threat from suicide boats. the 1st Marine Division relieved the 27th Infantry Division and the 77th Infantry Division relieved the 96th. When the 6th Marine Division arrived, the III Amphibious Corps took over the right flank and Tenth Army assumed control of the battle. The 32nd Army withdrew to the south and thus the Marines had an easy task of securing Shuri Castle. The castle, however, was outside the 1st Marine Division's assigned zone, and only frantic efforts by the commander and staff of the 77th Infantry Division prevented an American airstrike and artillery bombardment which would have resulted in many friendly fire casualties. before being removed and replaced by a US flag three days later on orders of General Buckner, himself the son of a Confederate General. The Japanese retreat, although harassed by artillery fire, was conducted with great skill at night and aided by the monsoon storms. The 32nd Army was able to move nearly 30,000 personnel into its last defense line on the Kiyan Peninsula, which ultimately led to the greatest slaughter on Okinawa in the latter stages of the battle, including the deaths of thousands of civilians. In addition, there were 9,000 IJN troops supported by 1,100 militia, with approximately 4,000 holed up at the underground headquarters on the hillside overlooking the Okinawa Naval Base in the Oroku Peninsula, east of the airfield. Ushijima and Chō committed suicide by seppuku in their command headquarters on Hill 89 in the closing hours of the battle.. On 22 June Tenth Army held a flag-raising ceremony to mark the end of organized resistance on Okinawa. On 23 June a mopping-up operation commenced, which concluded on 30 June. On 15 August 1945, Admiral Matome Ugaki was killed while part of a kamikaze raid on Iheyajima island. The official surrender ceremony was held on 7 September, near the Kadena Airfield. ==Casualties==

pay homage to their comrade killed in the Ryukyu Islands. The Battle of Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. The most complete tally of deaths during the battle is at the Cornerstone of Peace monument at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, which identifies the names of each individual who died at Okinawa in World War II. As of 2023, the monument lists 242,046 names, including 149,634 Okinawans, 77,823 Imperial Japanese soldiers, 14,010 Americans, and smaller numbers of people from South Korea (381), the United Kingdom (82), North Korea (82) and Taiwan (34). 234,183 names were inscribed by the time of unveiling, and new names are added as necessary. 40,000 of the Okinawan civilians killed had been drafted or impressed by the Japanese army and are often counted as combat deaths. Military losses American tanks knocked out by Japanese artillery at Bloody Ridge, 20 April 1945 The Americans suffered some 48,000 casualties, not including some 33,000 non-battle casualties (psychiatric, injuries, illnesses), of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing. Killed in action were 4,907 Navy, 4,675 Army, and 2,938 Marine Corps personnel; while 13,708 marines were wounded. when excluding naval losses at sea and losses on the surrounding islands (such as Ie Shima), 6,316 killed and over 30,000 wounded occurred on Okinawa proper. Other authors such as John Keegan have come up with higher numbers. The battle caused more than twice the number of American casualties than both the Guadalcanal Campaign and Battle of Iwo Jima combined, with the Japanese kamikaze effort causing the American Navy to suffer more casualties than any previous engagement in the Atlantic or Pacific. The most famous American casualty was Lieutenant General Buckner, whose decision to attack the Japanese defenses head-on, although extremely costly in American lives, was ultimately successful. Four days from the closing of the campaign, Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery fire, which blew lethal slivers of coral into his body, while inspecting his troops at the front line. He was the highest-ranking US officer to be killed by enemy fire during the Second World War. The day after Buckner was killed, Brigadier General Easley was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire. War correspondent Ernie Pyle was also killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on Ie Shima, a small island just off of northwestern Okinawa. (right), taken on 18 June 1945. Later in the day, he was killed by Japanese artillery fire. , taken on 19 June 1945. He was later killed by Japanese machine-gun fire. Aircraft losses over the three-month period were 768 US planes, including those bombing the Kyushu airfields launching kamikazes. Combat losses were 458, and the other 310 were operational accidents. At sea, 368 Allied ships—including 120 amphibious craft—were damaged while another 36—including 15 amphibious ships and 12 destroyers—were sunk during the Okinawa campaign. The US Navy's dead exceeded its wounded, with 4,907 killed and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze attacks. American personnel casualties included thousands of cases of mental breakdown. According to the account of the battle presented in Marine Corps Gazette: Medal of Honor recipients from Okinawa are: Marine Corps • Richard E. Bush – 16 April • Henry A. Courtney Jr. – 14–15 May () • James L. Day – 14–17 May • John P. Fardy – 7 May (posth.) • William A. Foster – 2 May (posth.) • Harold Gonsalves – 15 April (posth.) • Dale M. Hansen – 7 May (posth.) • Louis J. Hauge Jr. – 14 May (posth.) • Elbert L. Kinser – 4 May (posth.) • Robert M. McTureous Jr. – 7 June (posth.) • Albert E. Schwab – 7 May (posth.) Army • Beauford T. Anderson – 13 April • Clarence B. Craft – 31 May • Desmond Doss – 29 April – 21 May • Martin O. May – 19–21 April (posth.) • Seymour W. Terry – 11 May (posth.) • John W. Meagher – 19 June • Edward J. Moskala – 9 April (posth.) • Joseph E. Muller – 15–16 May (posth.) • Alejandro R. Ruiz – 28 April Navy • Robert Eugene Bush – 2 May • William D. Halyburton Jr. – 10 May (posth.) • Fred F. Lester – 8 June (posth.) • Richard M. McCool Jr. – 10–11 June Allied naval losses The following table lists the Allied naval vessels that received damage or were sunk in the Battle of Okinawa between 19 March – 30 July 1945. The table lists a total of 147 damaged ships, five of which were damaged by enemy suicide boats and another five by mines. During the naval battle, which started before the amphibious landings on Okinawa on 1 April, suffered over 800 killed and missing and suffered 396 killed and missing. These were the first and third largest loss of life on damaged or sunken American aircraft carriers during World War II. USS Franklin (hit by two bombs in a level bombing attack by a D4Y Suisei (Judy) on 19 March 1945) and USS Bunker Hill were the only two aircraft carriers that sustained very severe damage from Japanese attacks and as a result were the only aircraft carriers in the that did not experience any active service after the end of World War II. One source estimated that total Japanese sorties during the entire Okinawa campaign exceeded 3,700, with a large percentage being kamikaze attacks, and that the attackers damaged slightly more than 200 Allied vessels, with 4,900 naval officers and seamen killed and roughly 4,824 wounded or missing. USS Thorton was damaged as the result of a collision with another US ship. The Japanese air attacks were so intense that Fifth Fleet commander Admiral Spruance's flagships were struck two separate times ( was hit in March and had to retire for repairs which forced him to transfer to which was also hit in May). Fast Carrier Task Force commander Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher and his chief of staff Commodore Arleigh Burke were yards away from getting killed or wounded by kamikazes on his flagship USS Bunker Hill, which killed three of Mitscher's staff officers and eleven of his enlisted staff members and also destroyed his flag cabin along with all of his uniforms, personal papers, and possessions. Just three days later Mitscher's new flagship was also struck by a kamikaze forcing him to have to change his flagship yet again. Both fleet carriers were knocked out for the rest of the war. sunk or had to be scuttled due to irreparable damage. Of those sunk, the majority were relatively smaller ships; these included destroyers of around 300–450 feet. A few small cargo ships were also sunk, several containing munitions which caught fire. scrapped or decommissioned as a result of damage. Japanese losses The US military estimates that 110,071 Japanese soldiers were killed during the battle. This total includes conscripted Okinawan civilians. A total of 7,401 Japanese regulars and 3,400 Okinawan conscripts surrendered or were captured during the battle of Okinawa. Additional Japanese and renegade Okinawans were captured or surrendered over the next few months, bringing the total to 16,346. with an Okinawan war orphan in April 1945. In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum presents Okinawa as being caught between Japan and the United States. During the battle, the Imperial Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawans' safety, and its soldiers used civilians as human shields or outright killed them. The Japanese military also confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed those who hid it, leading to mass starvation, and forced civilians out of their shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000 people who spoke in the Okinawan language to suppress spying. The museum writes that "some were blown apart by [artillery] shells, some finding themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to malaria, while others fell victim to the retreating Japanese troops." Thousands of civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that American soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture at the hands of the Americans. Some of them threw themselves and their family members from the southern cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides. Okinawans "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy". Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden states that the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned". American Military Intelligence Corps combat translators such as Teruto Tsubota managed to convince many civilians not to kill themselves. Survivors of the mass suicides blamed also the indoctrination of their education system of the time, in which the Okinawans were taught to become "more Japanese than the Japanese" and were expected to prove it. , one of which is being read by a prisoner awaiting transport. Witnesses and historians claim that American and Japanese soldiers raped Okinawan women during the battle. Rape by Japanese troops reportedly "became common" in June, after it became clear that the Imperial Japanese Army had been defeated. There are, however, numerous credible testimony accounts which note that a large number of rapes were committed by American forces during the battle. This includes stories of rape after trading sexual favors or even marrying Americans, such as the alleged incident in the village of Katsuyama, where civilians said they had formed a vigilante group to ambush and kill three black American soldiers whom they claimed would frequently rape the local girls there. MEXT textbook controversy There is ongoing disagreement between Okinawa's local government and Japan's national government over the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides during the battle. In March 2007, the national Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) advised textbook publishers to reword descriptions that the embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to kill themselves in the war to avoid being taken prisoner. MEXT preferred descriptions that just say that civilians received hand grenades from the Japanese military. This move sparked widespread protests among Okinawans. In June 2007, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly adopted a resolution stating, "We strongly call on the (national) government to retract the instruction and to immediately restore the description in the textbooks so the truth of the Battle of Okinawa will be handed down correctly and a tragic war will never happen again." On 29 September 2007, about 110,000 people held the biggest political rally in the history of Okinawa to demand that MEXT retract its order to textbook publishers regarding revising the account of the civilian suicides. The resolution states, "It is an undeniable fact that the 'multiple suicides' would not have occurred without the involvement of the Japanese military and any deletion of or revision to (the descriptions) is a denial and distortion of the many testimonies by those people who survived the incidents." In December 2007, MEXT partially admitted the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides. The ministry's Textbook Authorization Council allowed the publishers to reinstate the reference that civilians "were forced into mass suicides by the Japanese military", on condition it is placed in sufficient context. The council report states, "It can be said that from the viewpoint of the Okinawa residents, they were forced into the mass suicides." That was not enough for the survivors who said it is important for children today to know what really happened. The Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburō Ōe wrote a booklet that states that the mass suicide order was given by the military during the battle. He was sued by revisionists, including a wartime commander during the battle, who disputed this and wanted to stop publication of the booklet. At a court hearing, Ōe testified "Mass suicides were forced on Okinawa islanders under Japan's hierarchical social structure that ran through the state of Japan, the Japanese armed forces and local garrisons." In March 2008, the Osaka Prefecture Court ruled in favor of Ōe, stating, "It can be said the military was deeply involved in the mass suicides." The court recognized the military's involvement in the mass suicides and murder-suicides, citing the testimony about the distribution of grenades for suicide by soldiers and the fact that mass suicides were not recorded on islands where the military was not stationed. In 2012, Korean-Japanese director Pak Su-nam announced her work on the documentary Nuchigafu (Okinawan for "only if one is alive") collecting living survivors' accounts to show "the truth of history to many people", alleging that "there were two types of orders for 'honorable deaths'—one for residents to kill each other and the other for the military to kill all residents". In March 2013, Japanese textbook publisher Shimizu Shoin was permitted by MEXT to publish the statements that "Orders from Japanese soldiers led to Okinawans committing group suicide" and "The [Japanese] army caused many tragedies in Okinawa, killing local civilians and forcing them to commit mass suicide." ==Aftermath==

Memorial with names of all military and civilians from all countries who died in the Battle of Okinawa on Okinawa, August 1945 Military historian and journalist Hanson W. Baldwin stated about scale and ferocity of the battle, especially for American forces, that:According to historian George Feifer, Okinawa was the "site of the largest land-sea-air battle in history" and that the battle was the "last major one before the start of the atomic age". At least 90% of the buildings on the island were destroyed, along with countless historical documents, artifacts, and cultural treasures, and the tropical landscape was turned into "a vast field of mud, lead, decay and maggots". The military value of Okinawa was significant, as Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in proximity to Japan. The US cleared the surrounding waters of mines in Operation Zebra, occupied Okinawa, and set up the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, a form of military government, after the battle. In 2011, one official of the prefectural government told David Hearst of The Guardian: Effect on the wider war Because the next major event following the Battle of Okinawa was the total surrender of Japan, the effect of this battle is more difficult to consider. Because Japan surrendered when it did, the anticipated series of battles and the invasion of the Japanese homeland never occurred, and all military strategies on both sides which presupposed this apparently-inevitable next development were immediately rendered moot. Some military historians believe that the Okinawa campaign led directly to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a means of avoiding the planned ground invasion of the Japanese mainland. This view is explained by Victor Davis Hanson in his book Ripples of Battle: Meanwhile, many parties continue to debate the broader question of "why Japan surrendered", attributing the surrender to a number of possible reasons including: the atomic bombings, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and Japan's depleted resources. Memorial In 1995, the Okinawa government erected a memorial monument named the Cornerstone of Peace in Mabuni, the site of the last fighting in southeastern Okinawa. The memorial lists all the known names of those who died in the battle, civilian and military, Japanese and foreign. As of 2024, the monument lists 242,225 names. Modern US base Significant US forces remain garrisoned on Okinawa as the United States Forces Japan, which the Japanese government sees as an important guarantee of regional stability, and Kadena remains the largest US air base in Asia. Local residents have long protested against the size and presence of the base. ==See also==